By the mid 1780s, most of Haydn’s works were immediately published, then heard across Europe and, for that matter, North America as well. Haydn’s music was embraced in Spain, adored in Italy and France as well as in Germany and Austria. The English in particular worshiped – and that is not too strong a word – worshiped Haydn’s music. Between 1781 and 1787, the English Publishing Firm of William Forester published 129 works by Haydn, of which 82 were symphonies, for which Haydn btw received a beaucoup bucks.

Starting 1783, various English concert societies began inviting Haydn to come over in England to conduct and compose, hang out and get very rich. Unfortunately, and much to Haydn’s unhappiness, he had to decline any and all such offers to travel abroad. There was no chance that Prince Nicholas ” the big shot” – Esterhazy would grant his capel maestro such an extended leave of absence […..]

Haydn’s popularity in England during the late 1780s was such that the press saw his position as little better than imprisonment. Even so far as to suggest that Haydn BE KIDNAPPED and brought to London. I kid you not. The following appeared in the London Review: “There is something very distressing to the liberal mind in the history of Haydn. This wonderful man, who is the Shakespeare of music, and the triumph of the age in which we live is doomed to reside in the court of a miserable German prince, who is once incapable of rewarding him and unworthy of the honor. Haydn, the simplest, as well as the greatest of men, is resigned to his condition and is content to live in a place little better than a dungeon, subject to the dominant spirit of a petty lord and a clamorous spirit of a scolding wife.”

Christine:
In sleep he sang to me
In dreams he came
That voice which calls to me
And speaks my name
And do I dream again?
For now I find
The phantom of the opera is there,
Inside my mindPhantom:
Sing once again with me
Our strange duet
My power over you
Grows stronger yet
And though you turn from me
to glance behind
The phantom of the opera is there
Inside your mind

Unlike Mozart, who never managed to achieve for himself a permanent patron, or Haydn, who was a music slave to the same family for over 29 years, Beethoven was an equal opportunity artist. He took from everybody, faught with an insulted all of them at a moment or another, and managed to maintain his singurality throughout.

Beethoven got along with N{…}but Haydn was for Beethoven, after his birth father, the second musical father, an authority figure the likes of which he was bound to have huge problems with. The lessons with Haydn took place across a span of only 14 month {…} Haydn, at best was at best a distracted teacher{…} Haydn must have known that Beethoven was his equal and very well surpassed him as a composer {…}

Still, Haydn was one of the most generous spirits in the history of music and things that would have brought other people to homicide…Beethoven’s homicide…that is – left Haydn urked, but not infuriated.

However, he would become infuriated very soon, for reasons that we’re about to find out. {…} You would think that Beethoven would show at least some respect for a composer that wrote 90 symphonies and was the most famous composer in the german-speaking world at the time.

But No, Beethoven went so far as to hire someone named Johann Schenck (??) to do the exercises Haydn was assigning Beethoven, because Beethoven didn’t think they were worth his own time. So rather than taking the money he was supposed to pay Haydn for the lessons, he took the money and paid Schenck to do his own homework, for him. And this was just the beginning.